West Midlands

Brutiful Brum: John Madin library update

If you have not done so already, there’s still time to lend support to Birmingham’s Brutiful Brum campaign to save the John Madin old city library.

Now boarded up and with the demolition tractors nibbling away at the building, its certificate of immunity from listing runs out on 11 January 2016.

On Tuesday 1 December, the indomitable campaigning group picketed outside the Council House, as the full Council Committee met to swear-in the new council leader John Clancy. Waving banners and giving out leaflets the group, headed by Mary Keating, gave off a defiant energy that really led one to believe that saving the magnificent ziggurat was still possible.

The group is ready to slap in a listing request at midnight on 10 January. With a recent open letter in the local paper signed by architectural luminaries Jonathan Meades, Jonathan Glancey and Owen Hatherley, hope is rising once again for a building that the World Monuments Fund considers to be one of the best brutalist buildings in the world!

For more information see Facebook Save The Birmingham Central Library or Twitter @Brutifulbrum.

Anna Douglas